WASHINGTON (AP)
-- Teamsters President James P. Hoffa is asking the Justice Department
to let the union police itself against organized crime in its
ranks after a decade of federal supervision. "It's time for a fresh review of this,"
Hoffa said.

The union will adopt a new code of conduct
to be enforced from within, Hoffa announced Thursday. Also, the
Teamsters have hired a former federal prosecutor to investigate
whether mob influences still remain 10 years of government supervision.
"If there are vestiges of organized
crime, we're going to find them and we're going to ferret them
out," said Hoffa.

Hoffa won the Teamsters' presidency and was
sworn in in March after promising to root out corruption and seek
an end to federal oversight that the union agreed to in 1989 in
order to avoid racketeering charges brought by the Justice Department.

In a letter, dated June 16, to Deputy Attorney
General Eric Holder, Hoffa said he believes that the Teamsters
can demonstrate that there is no longer a need for federal intervention
in their affairs.

A spokesman for Mary Jo White, the U.S. attorney
for the Southern District of New York who is the Justice Department
official in charge of Teamsters oversight, said that her office
had replied to Hoffa's letter inviting union officials to set
a date to meet with her. "We look forward to meeting and working
with the new leadership of the IBT (International Brotherhood
of Teamsters) to ensure that the progress under the consent decree
continues," said White's spokesman, Marvin Smilon.

Ken Paff, a national organizer for Teamsters
for a Democratic Union, a faction that opposed Hoffa's election,
said the union's recent campaign finance scandal should be taken
as proof that some federal oversight is still needed.

Hoffa's election to the Teamsters' presidency
last year came after his loss to incumbent Ron Carey in 1996 was
set aside when investigators found that Carey's campaign had improperly
benefited from donations the union made to third-party political
organizations. "One of the chief functions of federal
monitors has been to ensure fair elections," said Paff. "Are
we going to stop having supervision of our elections?"

Hoffa's father, Jimmy Hoffa, built the Teamsters
into a national powerhouse, but was sent to prison for jury tampering
and misusing union funds. He disappeared in 1975, and is presumed
a victim of organized crime. "I think he'd be proud of what I'm doing,"
Hoffa said.